


I Just Want To Dance!!

by Anti_Social_Angst_Queen, SquiddlesScribbles



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Digital Art, Drosselmeyer Do Not Interact, Duck just wants to dance, Ducks don't care about love, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, In this house we love and appreciate Ahiru's flock, Like, M/M, Misuse of Determination, Multi, No Beta We Die Like The Story Keepers Cut Our Hands Off, No-Story Au, Poly Relationships, Slow Burn, The Power of Believing in Yourself, cowritten, established poly relationship, reaaaaally slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22098826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_Social_Angst_Queen/pseuds/Anti_Social_Angst_Queen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquiddlesScribbles/pseuds/SquiddlesScribbles
Summary: Ducks do not care about grace, or beauty. Ducks don't care about romance, or fighting.  Ducks care about surviving, and persevering.This duck just also happens to care about ballet.That doesn't mean she has any interest in her far too beautiful to be normal classmates.
Relationships: Ahiru | Duck/Fakir (Princess Tutu), Ahiru | Duck/Fakir (Princess Tutu)/Mytho (Princess Tutu)/Rue (Princess Tutu), Ahiru | Duck/Mytho (Princess Tutu), Ahiru | Duck/Rue (Princess Tutu), Fakir/Mytho (Princess Tutu), Mytho/Rue (Princess Tutu)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	1. Ducks Don't Care.

Once Upon a Time, there was a storybook.

The storybook, known as the Prince and the Raven, charmed many peoples hearts. 

  
THIS story, is not the Prince and the Raven, though it may contain it’s characters.

To the storywriter, Drosselmeyer, please keep your gross smelly old man fingers away from this tale, as it is no tragedy.

This time, this story, we are reading a romance.

It will be, by no means, a fast story, nor will our lead even begin to feel the stirrings of romance for a long time to come. But regardless, it is a romance.

With that knowledge, let us turn to page one, shall we?

* * *

On the outskirts of Castletown, in a small pond, there lived a duck. This duck was nothing necessarily special, she was by no means magical, or stronger than any other duck, or prettier. And really, ducks do not care for such things as beauty, or magic, or strength. What this duck DID have, that set her aside from her fellow flock, were goals. Each day, at the break of dawn, she would gather her strength and leave the safety of her pond, waddle her way through Castletown, and greet each person opening their stalls. 

They each had come to refer to her as Ahiru, as they knew she was the same duck. It wasn’t really hard to tell, what with Ahiru having a large, rather oversized feather standing atop her head. Some of the people in the stalls were very kind to her, giving her birdseed to take as a sort of lunch, and she would carefully walk her way to school, seeds in a bag clamped tightly in her bill. The school was a large one, and her first few times she had become totally and helplessly lost before ever reaching one of the rooms. Then one day, one of the ballet students had picked her up and put her in his bag before class, and she’d gotten to watch them dance.

It was at that moment, that very moment that she first got to see the grace and beauty of a dancer, that Ahiru- and I feel the need here to stress to you, my dear reader, that Ahiru is only a duck- decided to begin dancing herself. To the student’s surprise, this small little duck began mimicking their movements, trying to dance as they did. She lacked the grace they maintained, and the balance they had come to master, but she got up each time she fell, and as such, the teacher asked her if she’d like to join them again. Ahiru accepted, and thus began her daily trips to the school to dance ballet. The boy who brought her was… not really as nice as she had thought, arguing with a pretty girl in a red dress and a boy- she thinks- who were sitting and chatting with each other. She wasn’t sure she liked the three of them much- they seemed far too pretty to be real.

  
  
  


Each day, her flock would come to her after class, and ask what she had learned that day, and taught it to them in turn. Her family was kind and loved her oh-so dearly, though they did not quite understand her desire to be a ballerina, they did understand that Ahiru had found something she wanted to do with herself, something that made her happy, and that alone made the wish to cheer her on. Because while ducks do not care for grace or beauty, they do care about their flock. And no matter how far from the pond Ahiru may waddle, how many steps she may take, deep down, she will always be one of them. She had always been a quiet, unsure and clumsy little one, falling behind the rest of the group in most things. She’d been the last to grow out of her soft downy feathers, the last to learn to fly- which is to say, she still couldn’t, and she usually remains with the seed lady over the winter to keep herself warm. It was fine by her, if she were honest, after all, she always had a home to return to once Spring arrived.

Today, the teacher decided that Ahiru could sit with the other students to watch the ‘special class’ put on a performance for them. She had been so excited, even when she discovered those three that always unnerved her were the three to watch. She loved watching them, but somehow, something felt missing. She couldn’t place it, and, being a duck, didn’t care all that much. One day, she wanted to be able to dance like that, dance so stunningly that she could keep an audience’s awestruck attention. That feeling of wanting so badly to dance gracefully made something stir in her chest, and kept her hope up during her many trials as she first started out. A faith she couldn’t place, a determination that shone through her dancing, her steps- her eyes. Her mother had always told her that she had the eyes of the strongest kind of fighter there was- one who knew when to show restraint but still stood strong in the face of any adversary. That was another thing ducks did care about- perseverance. Survival. It was crucial for a duck, crucial for the whole flock. And so, seeing that determination finally aimed at a goal, Ahiru’s feathered family rejoiced.

* * *

Once Upon a Time, there was a duck who loved to dance. This is her fairy tale.


	2. A Knight's Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once Upon a Time, there was a knight. This knight did not believe he was one and devoted his time to writing. This knight also had a weakness for animals, but never showed it. The Prince and the Princess both invited the knight to dance, and spirited him away for hours on end.

Fakir couldn’t have possibly been more fed up with his friends than he was at this moment. Sure, Fakir’s patience was strained on the best of days- his childhood friends had shoved their grubby fingers into his life and had never let go, and it never ceased to rub him the wrong way- but today was a bit worse than usual. They wouldn’t stop talking about the ‘cute little duck’ that had joined their ballet class, and every time they brought it up he just rolled his eyes, unable or unwilling to tolerate such a stupid obsession. His love of animals notwithstanding, he had better things to do with his time.

  
  


“Could you guys just leave me alone?” He asked, turning with his eyes narrowed at the chatting pair. Rue and Mytho were certainly loud- ironic given that they seemed so soft-spoken. “Unlike you dancers, I have  _ real _ work to do,” he said, referring to the play he was writing for his own class. It was basically fanfiction, but he’d never admit it. Never. Especially not to the girls in his division that constantly poked fun at him about the things he wrote, pointing out similarities that he’d hoped no one would catch onto.

Mytho, with his beautiful big gold eyes-unnecessarily pretty, Fakir thinks, grumbling to himself how unfair it was that Mytho could make people melt with a glance- gave Fakir a fake kicked-puppy look, making Fakir sigh. “But Fakir, she’s just a little duck! She does all of our ballet moves with her little feet! It’s adorable.” the sort-of albino gushes, smiling when Rue nods in agreeance.

“And this stupid nickname you have with her is weird. Isn’t it a little- I don’t know, offensive? To compare that girl with a duck?” Fakir asked with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously, you don’t call her that to her face, do you? So much for ‘princely manners’ Mytho.” He scolds, but he’s cut off from a full-blown lecture.

Rue interjects, eyes rolling so hard in their socket that Fakir finds himself half hoping they’ll pop out. “You idiot, she  _ is _ a duck. You’d know if you ever hung out with us.” Fakir always wants to jab her in the side when she talks down to him like that- like hello, he wasn’t the one who failed third grade English, now was he?

“Yeah, okay,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. There’s a hint of a laugh in his voice as he gives the other two a look “And I’m a knight who writes stories that come true. Grow up.” Mytho looks like he wants to make a point about that, but Fakir shoves a finger against his lips with a hissed “No conspiracy theories about Gold Crown Town, Mytho. You aren’t a fucking king or whatever.”

Mytho and Rue exchanged glances, but gave up trying to convince their thick-headed friend- who frankly in their opinion, needed a haircut- and instead went back to talking about their new ‘classmate’. Fakir debates taking off back to class, but somehow the two of them manage to outpace him in any race they’ve ever run and he’s not in the mood to try when Rue has her pointe shoes on. That had been painful for both of them and he’d felt awful for a week.

The thing about ducks, Fakir had learned, was that they were functionally just much smaller geese or swans. They were vicious little bastards who would peck at you until you succumb, and the one time he’d written a research paper on them for a class he’d needed to be heavily coaxed to reapproach the duck pond by his friends. He knew three things. Ducks didn’t give a  _ shit _ about authority, ducks didn’t care for things like grace and beauty, and ducks  _ sure as hell couldn’t dance the Nutcracker Suite.  _

The thing about luck, though, was that it was never really on Fakir’s side, and if he’s positive something with going the way he thinks, the plan will almost definitely go haywire. The drama class he was in had come to call it the Fakir Effect, much to his embarrassed chagrin, and it seems that would be biting him in the ass yet again today, because lo and behold, waddling it’s weird nerveless feet into the room, was a fucking duck.

There. There was a duck doing warm-ups with two giggly girls from the basics class- he’d never bothered learning their names and what little he knew about them made him want to slap them both- but his attention was stuck staring at the waterfowl. Who the hell let a DUCK into the school??! How did it even find this classroom?? Sure, the duck seemed… sort of familiar, for some reason, but he couldn’t actually place from where. There were a lot of ducks in Gold Crown, excuse him for not knowing each and every water chicken on sight. Plus it was on the other side of the room and he couldn’t actually see it for shit. He really should bring his glasses with him to class.

“Mytho?”

“Yes, Fakir?”

“Why is there a discount goose running through warmups?”

“I think the store owners call her Ahiru, but obviously because she’s getting ready for class?”

“SHE is a DUCK, Mytho, WHY is she doing BALLET??!”

This comment is accented by an angry ‘quack’, and suddenly Fakir had a ball of feathers and cold webbed feet pecking at his face.

He really, really didn’t like this duck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear things up, this fanfic will have alternating chapters- likely set to Ahiru-Fakir-Rue-Mytho. There may be others popping in but overall it will follow this.


	3. A Raven By A Princess' Name Would Be Just As Sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once Upon A Time, there was a little girl who was almost taken by crows. 
> 
> Thanks to her parents however, this crisis was averted, and the girl grew into a beautiful young woman.
> 
> But what of her feathers? Her prince cares not.
> 
> For the prince cares far more for her inner beauty than anything on the surface

When Rue was one, her parents said she was cursed by a crow.

She thinks now, looking back, that they just didn’t know how else to explain her condition, and they still don’t. It isn’t exactly easy to explain feathers growing from her skin. They sprout along her arms, legs- any skin away from her face and hands. Her doctors couldn’t place what was wrong, what caused it, and for a long time, she kept all her skin covered as much as possible, too nervous of the words and opinions of others to risk it.

Then she met Mytho.

Mytho had always been eccentric- most of Gold Crown knew him just because he always was loudly rambling to his friends about storybooks and government theories. The two of their paths never really crossed until third grade, when the teacher sat them next to one another and he’d called her ‘his Princess Kraehe.’

She hadn’t taken that very well, she must admit, and the black eye he’d received leading to her having to sit out of English class for a month had absolutely been worth it. Once she got to know him, she came to learn he was trying to compliment her. When Autor tried to ask her on a recess date, she’d turned him down, claiming her Prince Siegfried had already asked.

They’d become inseparable fast.

In middle school, Rue came to learn Mytho was absolutely 100% serious about all this fairytale business he rambled about, and Rue liked seeing him smile, and thus did not stop him.  
In hindsight, she maybe should have, if only for Fakir’s sanity.

Fakir was a transfer student from a smaller school just outside the city, there to study creative writing. Mytho immediately latched onto him upon sight, rambling about a knight and such. Fakir was… a little less inclined to join Mytho’s ‘court’, telling the other to his face that “he was creeping Fakir out.”

Rue hadn’t taken THAT well either, and then all three of them had been forced to be friends by the teacher. Fakir, after the first week, had warmed up to them enough to decide the two of them needed SOMEONE sane, and thus for the next few years, became their begrudging brain cell and supposed ‘mom friend,’ though he absolutely hated being referred to as such.

Mytho had insisted upon taking ballet, and Rue hadn’t really complained. A simple doctor’s note meant she could wear a thin bodysuit under her leotard, hiding any feathers, and she could spend more time with Mytho. Fakir, on the other hand, chose to go into drama, as then he could concentrate on being a playwright. However, Mytho wouldn’t be dissuaded and insisted Fakir write while the two were doing practice, knowing full well Fakir picked things up through knowledge osmosis, and thus managed to pick up the basics of ballet not long after they did. The teacher didn’t mind, Fakir told lovely stories and wasn’t obstructive to the class’ progress, and thus started the cycle of him being dragged to their class to watch while he goes through his own creative process. It was a nice pattern, and Rue noted that Fakir only complained if directly pestered over it.

And then one day, he brought a duck.

The duck was small, so very small, with adorable blue eyes and a feather sticking out awkwardly from her little head, and Rue found herself melting. Fakir had apparently found it wandering the halls on his way to class, but didn’t want it getting trampled in the drama department, and so brought it here. He’d left, without the duck, and so class continued with the duck watching.

And then, joining.

“Rue, Rue!! Look down, she’s copying you!” 

Rue decided then, that she very much liked this duck, and began helping her by slowing down, giving her more time to learn the steps, and correcting her a little when she notices a fatal flaw.

Mytho found himself melting too, she’d come to learn, and the two usually spent as much time as they could with her while Fakir was busy.

She did notice the duck would avoid her, Mytho, and Fakir after a few days, seemingly unnerved by them. It happened pretty often, Pique and Lillie from the beginners class had called them a ‘storybook perfect trio’, and it made others nervous sometimes.

Of course, sitting here and watching Fakir run with his arms up to shield his face from a duck a fifteenth of his size was always entertaining, so she thinks overall, she can get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm really sorry there's no art on this chapter and that it's late- I've had some home issues. Thank you for your continued support!


End file.
